Moscow nationalists tried to stage a mop up operation in a dormitory in Kapotnya district in the city’s south-east

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Last Friday, Moscow nationalists tried to stage a mop up operation in a dormitory in Kapotnya district in the city’s south-east, where migrant workers traditionally live. As a result an exchange of fire began with the use of non-lethal pistols. Police detained about 60 people on both sides, and criminal proceedings were launched over mass hooliganism. Leaders of official nationalist organizations believe this attack at a dormitory may affect the staging of the next annual Russian March that is traditionally held in the south-east of Moscow.

At about 8 p.m. on Friday, about 30 young people got together at the dormitory, the Kommersant daily reports. The young men were from the nationalistic organizations Moscow Shield and Narko-Stop. The inhabitants of the building barricaded themselves on seeing the visitors. However, the nationalists were not discouraged by that, deciding to storm the building. They were breaking open the doors asking the inhabitants to produce their Moscow registration. Nationalists and residents of the house launched an exchange of fire with the use of traumatic pistols. About 60 people were detained, including Moscow Shield’s leader Alexei Khudyakov.

Khudyakov’s lawyer Oksana Mikhalkina told the Kommersant daily that his organization had been monitoring the sites where illegal migrants lived for half a year before that. “Activists of the movement even created an interactive map showing the places where illegal migrants lived,” Mikhalkina said.

“But during their raids, my client and his allies never operated alone, they always invited staffers from the Federal Migration Service and police,” she said.

Police detained 60 people. Most of them were migrants from countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily noted. The Federal Migration Service has already reported that at least 20 people will be deported for violating migration laws. However, they specified that 19 of the detained people were working in the Russian capital quite legally.

Anton Tsvetkov from the public council of the Interior Ministry’s Moscow department said leaders of such organizations would be now taught to carry out raids correctly.

“It seems that many such groups of activists have benevolent intentions - fight against drug trafficking and illegal migration. But methods used by some of them invite questions,” Tsvetkov says. “Some act strictly within the law. And others find it easier to issue a call on the Internet, recruiting not volunteers but simple hooligans whose fingers itch to give somebody a beating,” he said.

Tsvetkov said explanatory work with these organizations was needed. “On Monday we will look into organizing a meeting of members from our council with leadership of such groups,” he added.